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Friday, 10 July 2015

Publishing For Kindle

Steps To Getting Your Book Published On Kindle And Other Digital Platforms

If you have been trying and struggling to work out how to get your book published
to the Kindle Digital Publishing platform then I have good news. I was
in the very same situation, trying to decipher the instructions given by
Amazon, poring over the forums and pulling my hair out as I would sit
and watch the spinning disk in frustration knowing that my digital file
was sitting in limbo in cyberspace.

Having now published six books successfully to the Kindle platform, I
can confidently take you through the steps to get your document
published in digital form as well. As I learn other platforms I will add
them to this set of instructions.

Have Your Book Ready

This may seem obvious but there are some important steps to get your
book ready for publishing on Kindle. Firstly, your book needs a title
page. Secondly, your book needs to have an active table of contents.
Depending on the type of book, it may also need an index. If you are
including maps and illustrations you may wish to have a List of
Illustrations with navigation as well as an index of credits for the
images. And, of course, your book will need a cover image. This is an
optional requirement by Amazon but essential in marketing your book.

Have you edited your book? If you are not confident, ask someone else to
edit it for you. Familiarise yourself with your word processing
application and learn how to create an active table of contents and
links to text and images within your manuscript.

Create or obtain a cover image for your book. Here are the guidelines from Amazon for creating a cover image.
Remember, if you are using an image which does not belong to you, you
must first obtain permission to use it unless it is in the public domain
and credit must always be given as to the source.

Once you are completely satisfied with the accuracy, layout and
navigation of your book you need to create a zip file ready to upload to
Amazon. The process for doing this differs between operating systems.
For a Mac, navigate to your book file in Finder >> right click on
it >> choose “Compress….. (name of file)”. The resulting .zip file
is what you will upload to Amazon.

Create An Account At Kindle Digital Publishing

It took me a bit of hunting around to find the Publishers’ area of the
Kindle store. And I couldn’t possibly remember the steps I went through
to find it now. Here is the link you’ll need to sign in or sign up. If
you are already an Amazon member you can use your existing Amazon
account information.

Upload Your Book

To upload your new book click on “Add New Title”

The next window is where you will enter all the information about your
book. The FAQ’s here are pretty good. Read through these and get
familiar with this page. It is important to describe your book as
accurately as possible.

In Step 1 you will enter the book title and description, contributors
which will include authors, illustrators and anyone else who contributed
to the content of your book. Amazon requires at least one contributor
and if your book is a public domain document, all contributors must be
credited. One thing I have neglected to do with my titles – and I must
go back and rectify this – is to enter myself as my books’ publisher. I
imagine that visitors will be able to click through to see more
published by me.

***UPDATE – I added myself as publisher to one of my books but it
doesn’t create a hyperlink so I will need to think of another way to
link them. Perhaps by using a unique tag of some kind***

In Step 2 you will declare your rights to the book. It is fine to
publish public domain books for kindle provided the same work does not
already exist in the Kindle store. You can make a public domain book
unique by publishing an “annotated” version or an “illustrated” version.

(At the top of this page you will see some more tabs. This is where you
can locate the forum (community) if you need help of any kind. There are
some pretty helpful and experienced publisher hanging out there.)

In Step 3 you will choose a category and keywords for your book. It is
important to choose the most appropriate category as this is how
visitors will find your book when viewing others of a similar nature.
Also choose your keywords carefully as these help drive readers who are
interested in your topic to your book.

In Step 4 you will upload your book cover. Amazon provides a placeholder
image if you don’t have a cover image but to give your book the best
chance of attracting interest an attractive cover is essential.

In Step 5 you will upload your book file. I suggest reading up on what
Digital Rights Management is but to me it seems logical that you would
choose to protect against unauthorized distribution of your book. Now browse for the .zip file you created earlier and choose “Upload Book”

It may take a few hours for your book to be uploaded, converted and
verified for Kindle so go away and have a cup of tea and start thinking
about your next book.

View Your Book In Kindle Preview

Once your book has been successfully uploaded and converted you will
receive a success message and Step 6 becomes visible. Here you are
encouraged to download your book and view it in Kindle Preview to ensure
that everything is as you expect it to be. This is a quality control
step which gives you the opportunity to rectify any errors before your
book goes live. The Kindle Preview app can be downloaded for Windows or
Mac so if you don’t have a Kindle it doesn’t step you performing this
important step.

Once you have completed Step 6 you will move on to the rights and pricing section.

Set Price And Other Variables, Then Publish

In Step 7 you can choose where your book is made available.

In Step 8 you will choose your book’s pricing. you can choose to have
Amazon set the price automatically based on the price you choose for
Amazon.com or you can determine the price for other Amazon stores
yourself.

In Step 9 you can decide whether to make you book available briefly for
lending by customers to a friend. This may encourage further sales of
your book.

Once you are satisfied with your book’s settings tick the box to confirm
your right to publish and agree to the Kindles T’s and C’s then hit
“Save and Publish”

The Next Big Step Is To Promote Your Book

Marketing Your First Book
You can have the best book in the world and no-one will buy it if they don't know it exists. If you have
created a blog or web-site for your book, link to it. Use social media
and writers’ forums. Hang out at the KDP (Kindle Digital Publishing)
forum. Here is a great article about promoting your first book:

Cover Image: portion of Hunting camp on Schoodic Lake, Maine; from a c.
1905 postcard published by the Hugh C. Leighton Company, Portland,
Maine. (Bangor & Aroostook Railroad series) is in the Public Domain.

Do You Have A Tip For Publishing For Kindle?

(Show Me Those Kindles Again)

Thanks for the links and good instructions. A project
like this can seem overwhelming. This will help lots of people figure
out this publishing platform.

Brite-IdeasMay 22, 2013 @ 11:33 am

thank very much, I will use this as my guideline for my first Kindle Book, really appreciate it

aishu19Jan 09, 2013 @ 4:15 pm

That is a great step by step instructions on how to
publish for Kindle. This would come useful to the many writers otu there
who want to enter the Kindle market. I hope to someday, when I know
what it is I want to write about

crosscreationsJan 08, 2013 @ 5:28 pm

Thanks so much for laying this out step-by-step to
Kindle Publishing. I will definitely be following your bread crumbs.
I've been interested in publishing for Kindle for awhile now. Gretel

KimGiancaterinoJan 08, 2013 @ 3:57 pm

Thanks for laying out the steps so well. I don't have a
Kindle reader, but it's possible to read Kindle books on a computer,
correct?

ElleDeeEsseJan 08, 2013 @ 4:39 pm

that's right. In the Kindle store there is an option to
download the right Kindle reader for your particular device. I have one
for my Mac

OhMeJan 08, 2013 @ 3:15 pm

What a wonderful resource for anyone wanting to publish for Kindle.

grandmamarilynSep 28, 2012 @ 9:39 pm

This is wonderful information. I am currently working on getting some of my books on Kindle.

PukekoSep 25, 2012 @ 6:24 pm

Fantastic. When we get home I will be giving this a try. Bookmarked and blessed.

AnaAlessaSep 24, 2012 @ 6:00 am

Excellent tips! I'd just add that as far as real
marketing tips go, having a professionally designed book cover is of
huge importance.

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